This years edition of the Gotland Runt off shore race was a comfy experience with winds between two and 20 knots. I sailed on Essex Girl again as floater. The boat has a great crew that is both experienced and fun to be around. We did a good start and managed to reach clean air pretty fast. At Almagrund we had a feeling that the new sails worked well. Later in the race this was confirmed when we got reports telling us that we were leading our class. At Fårö the wind died. We stuck to a conservative strategy even though most boats started to hunt for wind along the shore line. In the end it turned out that we reach new wind first and could gain some distance. The east side of Gotland was tacking for hours in winds between 6 to 16 knots. The new Genoa 1 heavy served us well and we managed to sail faster than most bigger boats around. On the way to Knolls grund it was night and we were reaching with a 0.75 spinnaker doing 10 to 16 knots. We passed less then fifty meters behind a ferry at full speed. A scary but beautiful experience. The ferry looked like a gigantic Christmas tree shining through our sails. The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. Inspired by Tour de France we created a rotation for the guys trimming the spinnaker. 10 minutes grinding, 10 minutes trimming, 10 minutes rest and then back to grinding, and so on. This was very effective and we mananged to stay focused in the hot sun all the way up to Alma. When we crossed the finish line we knew that we had won our class. That felt very good and gave a sweet taste to all beers that night. Check out the pics.